Legal Question in Business Law in California

Hired a lazy Architect -- is there a time limit on work?

1. If a contract does not have a completion/compliance date; can either party wait as long as they wish to complete their end of the bargain?

2. If we can determine that there has been a reasonable amount of time that has passed and no action was taken to comlpete the said items of a contract, can we go after the cost of the time wasted? (In this case, accumilation of interest).

Here is the story:

We paid an architect to draw up plans for the construction of a new building in Los Angeles county; we have the plans in our possesion, but part of the agreement is that he needs to work with the city and civil engineers to get the plan approved. This is a time sensitive project because the funding for the project will cease early next year (and accum interest) and we know that LA County building and saftey is notoriously slow. It has been 6 weeks since the completion of his drawings, and he has yet to go meet with the city B&S. The question boils down to; Do we have a case against him if a certain amount of time passes, and if so what is the next best necessary step to 'encourage' him to complete his end of the bargain? I believe a simple threat of a lawsuit would be enuf


Asked on 9/28/06, 5:02 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Matthew Mickelson Law Offices of Matthew C. Mickelson

Re: Hired a lazy Architect -- is there a time limit on work?

If no time for completion is included in the contract, a "reasonable" time for completion will generally be read into it. It may be too soon to sue on the contract, however, since you don't yet know if you're going to suffer damages because of the slowness of the architect. A threat to sue will probably move him along; otherwise, you might have to get another architect and sue him later if you have damages.

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Answered on 9/28/06, 5:47 pm


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